Things to do in Marn when you're Wanted

[Chrishton Radu]

It was a stupid, almost embarrassing mistake to forget to gather more provisions. Chrishton was so accustomed to traveling alone, and furthermore traveling through the umbra, that having someone with him was an old and forgotten activity. Going it alone, he didn't need to bring anything at all. It was a foolish oversight that he was prepared to rectify.

In the flickering light of the fire, he sighed and looked down at his feet. He still didn't have any shoes. That was about to make things easier for a change, at least. He then looked over at his sidekick and seemed hesitant to do whatever he was about to do.

"No time like the present. Imma haveta find somethin' t'eat. Which means I haveta shift. Which means 'ere ya go."

With that, he initiated a transformation he had not done in full visibility of another human being in nearly a year. The procedure was easy for him. It came quickly and painlessly, despite the strain it put on his body.

In a matter of three seconds, his entire physical form changed from that of a bulky, muscular, middle-aged human man with long, brown wavy hair and a gut that pushed out a tad more than an ideal figure would have, to a thin, lithe creature with features that were unmistakably inhuman. The long hair turned white and shrank to no more than two inches long at first, followed by the sprouting arrival of a large pair of white ears and then an entire swath of white fur that covered his entire body where it could be seen around his clothes.

The fur fell over him like a blanket while his figure hunched over, straining with flexed muscles to give way to the skeletal changes taking place beneath. This only took another second, but it did not look particularly comfortable. When it was over, he straightened up and looked at her with the face of a fox; golden-brown eyes, a thin whiskered muzzle and canines.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Dorcas gazed around what was going to be their campsite and noted the distinct lack of vitality that surrounded them. The trees seemed to exist in a deader state of living than she had ever observed before. There was certainly no overt sign of fauna outside their immediate party. She turned to raise her arms up and gather her cat from the horse's back, and when she did, Chrishton said something about shifting, the meaning of which was lost on her. Her cat, however, squirmed so violently when he said this that she lost hold of him and he jumped past her shoulder to land on the ground near Chris. The dirt here was so stiff that hardly a shake of dust came up with his heavy landing.

Dorcas turned to see her cat land next to Chris and found another sight entirely. What did he mean by " . . . 'ere ya go"? Something odd was happening to Chris. Within about a second, her conscious mind had registered an unnatural change before her eyes, but she had not yet processed the extent of what she was seeing. An entirely involuntary, strangled cry rose from her throat. Her mouth stretched wide with worry. Dorcas's gaze was distracted for a flicker of a moment as her cat released a vibrant yowl. The beast was transfixed by the sight of Chrishton's change.

From the corner of her eye, Dorcas saw Chris's figure shrink down, and she looked back at him. Chrishton no longer stood before her, and there was a fox in his place. She dropped to a stoop, and then fell onto her knees, two fluid movements performed in jerky succession.

The cat trotted over to Dorcas and forced the touch of her slack hand by bumping her knuckles with his forehead. Distractedly, she ran her hand around his head and neck, and then scooped up his tummy and pulled him up to her chest. The cat stared at the fox that was Chrishton and purred roughly.

"Kitty, kitty," murmured Dorcas. She regarded the white fox with suspicion and then arced her gaze around the sparse forest above. "Chris!" she shouted, feebly at first, and then again. "Chriiiis!" The whole change had happened so quickly and unexpectedly, Dorcas hadn't had the time to talk him out of it. It was a mistake to have allowed him to tell her those stories without at least taking the time to educate him about physics.

[Chrishton Radu]

While in the body of a fox, Chrishton's mind was subjected to numerous physiological changes, the results of which were thought patterns that rested on the memories and knowledge of his human self without the forethought and cognitive abilities that normally accompanied them. The gaps in his mental world were filled with one thing animals had plenty of - instinct.

Instinctually he knew that the girl before him, his friend and companion, was upset because of something he'd done. Her emotional distress was plainly visible and he could smell, wafting through the air, all the characteristic hormones and other signals that she was under stress.

Why exactly she was experiencing this as a result of his shift was a concept now beyond his reach. It didn't even occur to him to think about it. Thinking in general took on a different substance to a fox. He could not make conjectures and hypotheticals. He could not purposefully run through past events in order to construct a myriad of future actions from which to choose. All he had to go on were a handful of basic, obvious choices.

Dorcas was upset, and that was bad because he liked her. She was calling his name, too. Obviously she needed him, so he trotted over to her and her cat and very cautiously attempted to nose her hand. A brief whine that was much scratchier and vocal than a dog's emanated from his throat. When she moved, he backed away a step and stared at her, jerking his two tails back and forth behind himself.

How was he going to make things better for her? Food. He remembered something about getting food. She must be hungry. Food was the answer.

The fox abruptly hopped back and sprinted away from her and into the woods to go find what it was looking for, the white, moonlit glow of its fur vanishing eventually behind gray branches and shrubs.

[Dorcas Tansy]

The backside of Dorcas's only change of clothes was quickly becoming filthy with old, dry dirt, but her rations and supplies were suddenly the least of her concerns. When the fox approached her, her boots scrabbled at the dirt in an effort to push herself backwards. His nose touched her knuckle and she froze. She didn't know how to react to how that felt.

The fox turned tail--no, tails--and bounded off like a feline-doggish beast that could by no means really be her friend. In actuality, she just wasn't willing to consider at the moment the striking, nuanced resemblance.

Her arms wrapped tightly around her cat's body. She refused to watch the fox's retreat. The cat wiggled sharply and purred; his body molded into the iron crooks of Dorcas's elbows lest he risk suffocation.

Dorcas stared up into the twiggy canopy above and breathed shallowly between dry hiccups of panic. The cat had to take the matter of the poor girl into his own control, and he merely arched his neck up so her could lick at her chin fervently. Dorcas sniffled and looked down at the cat, who stared back at her with such earnestness as to calm her breathing.

She lowered her gaze and stared around the forest at her own level, rather than looking up for salvation. Her arms relaxed only enough to reserve some energy. She gulped a deep breath and let her chin down to rest on top of her cat's head.

"Kitty, kitty, kitty," she sighed into his filthy fur. She tangled her fingers around his warm stomach and accepted the comfort of the only friend present as the reality of the cold forest set in around her.

[Chrishton Radu]

In and out. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Catching a rabbit was easy. The fox had two decades of experience, spiritual help, a bit of luck and a load of smarts. They were stupid, always picked the same kinds of places to make their little burrows, always nibbled on the same leaves, always reacted the same way to a start.

Chrishton the fox caught one shuffling about near its burrow and was on it so fast it barely had time to react. A few violent thrashes in the fox's firm jaws and its neck snapped like a twig.

Success. Back to his sad friend with her present. He hoped the rabbit would make things better.

No more than eight minutes passed from the time he left until the time the fox returned, slinking out of the bushes with a gray lump of fur in its mouth. It plotted a course around the dwindling fire, up to three feet away from Dorcas, and dropped the gift on the ground for her.

That was all he could do like this. He needed to change into a smarter self to talk to her. And so he did, only this time he did not become a human. The two foot long canine lowered its head, hunched in a manner familiar from the previous transformation, and grew to the size of a man. It did not lose its fur - Chrishton's clothes were still in a heap on the ground where he'd done the first transformation - and took on a distinctly humanoid form.

When he looked up, he still had the face of a fox.

Dorcas' reaction was not what he expected from her. She was way beyond a healthy amount of surprise that should accompany the discovery that ones friend is a shifter. He might as well have pulled off his head and started spraying blood around, she was so bewildered. A few more shades of white and she'd look just like him.

He got the impression she was ready to scream. So he spoke, in a smooth voice that was fluent in Eyropan and had none of Chrishton's crude accent to it.

"I'm sorry, I think I got carried away. Are you alright?"

[Taal]

Taal was calm and patient.

The rabbit before him had been sitting there for a small time, and slowly, the darkly-clad figure was in the process of removing his rifle. Had he been hunting for the rabbit, he would have been prepared already, but drawing his rifle, and inserting a long, silvery-colored shell into the breech of his gnome-made gun was taking its time.

As he brought the gun into his shoulder, he raised it up and looked down the faceted gnome scope, the odd reticule shimmering slightly as it converted incoming light. Still Taal had not been seen. As his finger curled slowly around the trigger, he started to squeeze.

The fox however came out of no where and snagged it.

Narrowing his eyes, the reticule turned on the fox, but as he was about to pull the trigger, he noticed something odd about its makeup. Two tails hung on its back and that was a good enough sign for him to take his finger off of the trigger. He was a patient man, but he was also superstitious and rather then letting it go and looking for new prey, he decided to follow, his interest perked.

Tracking the fox back to the campsite had not been very difficult, and looking on the camp though the scope of his rifle, he saw the woman, apparently by her self and the fo… well, it was a fox a moment ago.

Seeing the now much taller amalgamation of man and fox, he had to look away from the scope and narrowed his eyes to see for himself what was there. He had never met an animal shifter before, but he felt justified in not shooting him.

Standing up, he held his rifle at his front, cradling it in his arm as he walked forward. Not making an effort to hide his presence any more, he emerged from behind one of the dead trees, his dark clothing swathed about him and his mane of black hair fluttering in the wind.

As two golden orbs looked over his scarf and past his hair, he held his gun ready in front of him, but pointed down and to the side, showing his readiness. Should anything go pear-shaped, he would bring that gun to bear in no time.

“This is a dangerous place to be leaving a woman to defend herself alone.” Taal said, his voice a rumbling thunder. His form was still partially concealed in shadows of the trees and looking form the woman to the fox-shifter, he nodded his head briefly in welcome.

“You would be wise to leave.”

[Dorcas Tansy]

A light spot in Dorcas's periphery drew her attention to the fox's return. Her chin jerked in his direction; her movements were bare and showed her agitation. The capillaries along the hollows of her eyes painted a spidery pattern of raw weariness.

It was squirrely, the white beast, and slick as oil, how it moved. It was probably just about the size of her big cat, but had an entirely different phenotype's worth of grace. The cat welcomed the fox's return with an abrupt halt to his purring.

After dropping its kill, the fox hunched and then rose. In short succession an unusual sort of elf-looking figure came out from the dark of the trees. Dorcas didn't notice him yet. She was staring up, as she sat on the forest floor, at the thing the fox had become. It wasn't Chris. The horse, a few feet behind Dorcas, shimmied an irritation off its flank and snorted; it was asleep.

When the man-fox spoke, Dorcas's expression merely saddened. Chrishton had departed and left her to her own, with this lofty-tongued monstrosity. Dorcas began to get to her feet, an act of resignation far greater than when she had taken to the ground. The cat poured smoothly out of her arms and hugged his bulk close to her boots.

Just then, the movement of Taal caught her eye, and as Dorcas was barely registering his presence, he spoke. He was accusing someone of leaving her here alone--perhaps he had seen Chris, or maybe he was just presuming against her own capacity for travel. Each of these thoughts came to her one after the other, in the course of a deep inhale and exhale. Then he told her to leave.

Anger flared up from Dorcas's chin to the apex of her eyebrows. The insult of the loss of a friend had a very different effect on her than a direct order she didn't care to follow. Her judgment was worn thin by her situation, and her pride was confused. "Wh--" Dorcas's throat caught as she gagged on a wave of nausea. She choked that sensation back and squashed it firmly beneath her diaphragm. "Who d'you you're talkin' to?" she hissed.

Her gaze darted briefly back to the man-fox, but he appeared docile and maybe friendly, even if she didn't want to make friends with a fancy animal-monster. He at least was not a threat. Dorcas pressed her right hand against the cuff of her left sleeve and began to push it up along her flexed forearm. She sneered at Taal, past the man-fox.

[Taal]

[OOC: Posting Sequence broken with Frug’s permission ]

“Someone who lacks wisdom, apparently.” Taal replied and with a short movement of his arm, his gun barrel pointed in her direction, although still aimed at the floor. The small movement was a show of defense but passive enough to show that he did not wish for trouble. His hand still rested casually on the upper grip, and it would only take a small, swift movement to bring the gun up to bear on the child.

Something he was prepared to do should she come closer.

Taal was not exactly experienced in the ways of other races. In fact he was one of the only Half-breed Elven-Trolls in existence and without any form of guidance, he did not know of many powers. All he knew was to expect the unexpected.

This girl could be a powerful magic user or a demon for all he knew.

“You are in a dangerous place, woman.” He said, his voice dipping to a more predatory growl. In the woods and the wild, the hunter was king, and to him, she was trespassing on ground that he saw as a sanctity, or sacred. “…and with your attitude, I am surprised that you have not been mauled or killed already.” He said then turned his eyes to the fox for a brief moment, gauging his reaction.

The furry muzzle of a head was not very forthcoming in foretelling its actions, but by its build Taal could tell the creature was swift and strong; maybe not as strong as him, but most certainly faster. Nevertheless, Taal had some tricks up his sleeve that he would be able to pull out should the fox jump the gun and run needlessly into battle.

“Seeing as my meal was taken from me, you may consider it a gift of good fortune.” Taal said as he motioned to the rabbit by the fox’s feet. “I am not one to result to selfishness out here in the wild, and the woman could use it more then I, no doubt.” He said, turning his golden eyes to look at her.

He remained half in the shadows as he looked at her, not wishing to give away his full appearance yet, rather seeing what she would do in the face of a gun barrel.

“I am Taal,” he said simply.

[Chrishton Radu]

Something was wrong. Dorcas wasn't looking at him with any sign of gratefulness or familiarity. Her eyes were completely blank, without any recognition to be found in them. She looked nothing but sadder after he spoke. Not the reaction Chrishton had hoped for. He might as well have just broke her the news that her cat was dead.

How could she not recognize him if he'd just shifted forms in front of her? There was nobody else around, or so he thought. He was no psychologist, had never dealt with anyone in such a state of shock over something as basic as a magical transformation. It made no more sense to him than it did to Dorcas.

Most people liked his werefox form. Liked it a fair bit better than his human one. Especially girls. So why...

Something shifted in the woods behind him. The kitsune jumped nearly three feet in the air and landed facing the stranger and poised to jump again in any direction that should be required.

This is a dangerous place to be leaving a woman to defend herself alone... You would be wise to leave.

The fox sneered at the remark. Chrishton knew what that thing in the stranger's hands was. It was a gun, and he was holding it in a threatening manner at him and Dorcas. The man holding the gun looked like some kind of cross-bred elf, a fact the fox could see through the darkness, but that didn't matter.

Much to Chrishton's chagrin, Dorcas got the first words in. She sounded to him like she was barely holding back tears, but her piss and vinegar tasted the same in the end.

…and with your attitude, I am surprised that you have not been mauled or killed already.

The kitsune's large ears flattened back against his head. This stranger thought he was a big tough guy because he had a gun? Chrishton had half a mind to make him eat a few of those bullets himself. He babbled something about having his meal stolen, which made Chrishton wonder if he meant the rabbit, or something else.

He decided to pipe in, every word dripping with sarcasm that dared him to try and use that gun of his.

"Oh well gee, Taal, you must be right! We were just about to leave these daaangerous woods," the fox said, waggling its fingers in Taal's direction, "and head right back into our place in the middle of the plane where it's safe. You should see it. Want to come over? You can be safe there with us!"

Straightening up, he added "put that pea shooter away before I make the rest of your life miserable."

[Dorcas Tansy]

A discussion of her attitude and nasty-willed threats of what might become of her because of it was nothing new to Dorcas; she'd been berated before by each in the short succession of governesses tried on her as a younger girl, before the cause was deemed futile. Attitude was one of her few weapons. Also, she had fists. With no better situation to cling to, Dorcas wrung her hands into fists.

Dorcas started when the man-fox spoke. Those sarcastic words simply didn't fit with the voice that gave them air--those were words of Chrishton's. Dorcas glanced away from Taal for a moment to regard the white beast with a new skepticism. Somehow he had hijacked some elements of Chris's personality. Dorcas's mind wasn't in a state to make wise decisions, but in the moment after he spoke, she concluded that this insult of an apparition, by virtue of its sass, could make an acceptable ally, for the moment. She stepped forward to take up beside him where they could stare down Taal in tandem.

The girl pushed her sleeve up to fully bare her left forearm. Another quick glance in the man-fox's direction attempted to size him up for his strength. He might do alright, if they closed on the strange elf-thing that his shooter lost its edge. Dorcas blinked several times rapidly as the image from last night of a battered Mydjeken sitting dumbly at the foot of the stairs flashed into her recollection. She tried not to let her gaze drift over to the man-fox again.

"This is my camp," said Dorcas with as much fury and as gruff a voice as she could muster. "I don' see your horse here, an' what're you gonna try'n' make of it?" Her dirty eyebrows rose with the highest pitched point of each sentence.

The girl, hardly of delicate or even very feminine build, tensed her forearm as she craned her fist this way and that for flexibility. A backwards roll of her shoulders gave away how big they were indeed, under her slightly oversized shirt.

[Taal]

Taal first responded to the Fox shifter, turning his golden eyes to the creature first, but the rest of his body remained completely still. They were arrogant, and haughty with no respect for the keepers of the wild, and that would be their undoing. He had offered them a meal and an introduction and sarcasm and anger were the only things that greeted him in return.

The troll side of him flared momentarily, but he kept it in check. Thankfully it had not been long since he had digested raw meat.

“You are hardly increasing the quality of my life already, Fox.” Taal said, his tone even and dripping with venom, although it seemed he had a sharp with about his words. “…If you feel you could make it worse, I invite you to try.” Taal said, his voice almost ending in a small growl.

Seeing the woman step forward, his gun remained pointed at the floor, but certainly more in her direction, his finger moved from the finger guard on the rifle and slowly found it’s way on to the trigger itself. Her feeble attempt at intimidation was going just as well as the foxes at the moment. It seemed her frame was certainly not feminine and actually quite attractive.

Taal liked powerful women over the slender, lithe sorts… they broke far too easily.

“Your camp lays in my hunting grounds, little human.” Taal said as he finally decided to step out of the shadows and into the pale light. His face came into view, his lower jaw hidden by a thick scarf and his upper head covered in black-gold skin. If he was a breed of elf, you could guarantee that no one had ever seen one of his kind before.

He likewise was powerfully built. His own shoulder muscles impossibly big for an elf and his slender midsection disproportionate to his thick arms and legs. The gun came up as he cradled it in his arm, his eyes peering at her behind a mane of thick, black hair. Although the gun was no longer pointed in her direction, his height and build showed that he was more than capable of using his hands.

Perhaps she would at least have the sense to back down, and with it, her subservient canine companion.

“I offered you a simple warning and relinquished my meal for you. Take or leave my advice if you so wish; but think that either of you can insult me again with no cause, and you will quickly discover the perils of doing so.”

Taal’s eyes slipped to the fox.

“And that includes you, shifter.”

Already Taal was regretting not shooting him when he had the chance.

[Chrishton Radu]

The fox's voice continued in a taunting manner, filled with derision. To someone already angered, the added sound of amusement in his voice was enough to drive most people over the edge. Not only was he talking down to Taal, he was getting a kick out of it. "Your hunting grounds? I don't smell your piss on the trees and nobody told us. Maybe you should talk to the Marnians about acquiring a deed."

The stranger's attention turned to Dorcas, at which point Chrishton decided to use the opportunity to utilize some magic he'd been wanting to show off for some time, especially for Dorcas, who knew almost nothing about what he was capable of.

With Taal's eyes directed on Dorcas, Chrishton took a single step back to position himself in the shadow of the trees and out of any direct rays of moonlight, although his white fur still reflected the firelight brilliantly. Then, in an instant, he was gone, and the yellow-orange glow ceased to reflect off the place where he was.

He remained still while invisible. Impressions where his feet were still remained in the dirt, and he knew he'd still have to keep his movements unpredictable to keep a skilled opponent from aiming a gun in his direction.

"You don't want to invite this kind of trouble, Taal.We're staying the night here, and leaving for Keltaris in the morning. Don't make me show you the kind of shit a fox can give you."

[Dorcas Tansy]

Taal came forward to the tune of the man-fox's--Chris's?--taunts. Dorcas had certainly never laid eyes on a thing like Taal before, but in the past several weeks, surprise had become as routine as boredom or humor in her changing world. Her world experience wasn't exactly expanding--for where was the rest of it, that had been there for her before?--and it certainly wasn't contracting. The change was a strange mutation, but the laws of thermodynamics had to be obeyed after all. That much, Dorcas could hope for.

If only she had been clinging to thoughts on thermodynamics at that moment, and not absorbing the strangely sculpted figure before her, she might have had the awareness to figure out what exactly the man-fox was doing. She didn't even notice at first. Taal had used the word "shifter" in address of the man-fox, but the not-entirely-familiar word was lost on Dorcas like so much white noise.

She didn't look to see why her periphery registered a shift of light where her companion stood. She was intent on talking down the monstrous elf who was tickling the trigger of his firearm and staring with an unseemly eye above a foreign-looking scarf. "Yah, there's nothin' livin' here, hardly even th'trees," she barked, "so what d'ye even want--"

Dorcas stopped short when the man-fox voice came again. Without a body of origin to associate it with visually, the voice seemed more like it could possibly be her friend Chris's. The girl blinked back at Taal. Real surprise registered in her eyes and momentarily washed away the hostility. She stared like a dumb, plain doe at the spot where he had been.

Her cat, hanging low to the ground, trotted over the the rabbit carcass several paces behind and began to sniff at its damp face, unmoved by the proceedings of the other three.

[Taal]

[OOC: I am so very, very sorry for the delay. I thought I may have had time to post on my holiday, but got so sidetracked with everything I lost touch of my online responsibilities. Thanks again for your patience guys.]

Taal did not even turn his head to look at the fox, rather, he kept his eyes on the woman as his ears twitched back and listening instead for any sign that something was moving towards him. Invisible or not, he was still making sounds it seemed. His super-active hearing could pick up breathing, the soft rustle of fur as his chest rose and fell and the ring of crickets in the dark night.

“As I said before... I invite you to try.” Taal said coldly and then slung his rifle over his shoulder with a soft, frustrated sigh. It was obvious that the pair of them was more words than anything else, and for all the shifters tricks, he doubted that either of them could best him in combat, although he was far form relaxed.

Instead he decided to make the first move of losing hostility by placing his gun back over his shoulder and stepping out a bit more into the moonlight. His dark skin and clothing was a very obvious show that he was a wilderness dweller and his garments were dirty and marked form years of trudging through mud or brambles.

His hair parted in the breeze to show his black and gold skinned face and his golden eyes shimmered in the night as he looked the woman over, the fox no longer visible so there was little point in addressing him.

“What you do is your choice, female. I simply offered you advise and a warning against the perils of the forest. If you wish to stay and find them out for yourself then I wish you well.” He added and then turned, moving past her and starting away from the camp, obviously disgusted with the pair of them. He may have been a monster and his way with words were obviously ragged, but not to get even a name from the pair?

Perhaps they deserved to get mauled.

“I will be nearby should you need assistance.” He added and began walking, looking as if he was going to head into the woodland again.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Feisty and pugnacious though she was, Dorcas had none of that certain feralness to her. Her posturing came from adolescent drive, a rather precocious wit, and an even more precocious physique. Therefore, when Taal came forth to address her with something resembling civility, she didn't concede to return the acknowledgment, but at least she didn't spook or fume. Rather, she looked away from his path of approach and clapped the broad knuckle-side of her right fist against the open cup of her left palm. There was still an adult present, if not visible, to take in Taal's vague warning and heed it if necessary.

Taal's path of exit from their little clearing brought him near the cat and the kill. The feline had been licking daintily at the moist effluent of death that trickled from rabbit's cold lips. When Taal's footsteps grew too close for comfort, the cat stared up with glowing saucers, then hastily clamped its jaw around a corner of the rabbit's sleek skull in order to stake his claim. The intruder walked on without interest, and the cat purred and grunted with self-satisfaction. He lapped at the ooze of blood his teeth had provoked.

Once Taal had walked far enough that Dorcas could be sure she was no longer in his periphery, she looked for Chris. Her only indication of where to find her companion was where she had last heard his voice. She gazed with unfocused eyes in the fox's general direction. If it were possible for the readable signs of recognition on her face to have disappeared beyond that initial shock when she found Chrishton's human form gone, then this was such a face. Her expression read entirely blank.

Taal would still hear her if she said anything. She parted her lips and screwed them into a plaintive lip-synch of Chris's name.